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"It's good to see a face with the right number of jaws."
So sue me, it was the first thing I said when she was waking up. And it's true: been a scary long time since I've had another human face to look at or talk to - aside from my reflection. "Who.." she starts to ask, her voice weak from disuse. Then, in a shift as abrupt as one of Them turning visible in an ambush, her voice is hard as steel. "Who're you?" she wants to know.
She's lying on one of the softer beds on the ship, though that's not saying much. Like every other room aboard, it's thrice longer than it is high, with the customary decorative lines that don't mean anything to my eyes.
"Alexa Woods," I say, introducing myself. "And you?"
"You're with the Company," she says, and it's not a question.
"Nope. I helped pull you off that ship." Or I would have, if Scar hadn't made me wait until an unblooded patrol had gone through to check for infestations or crew.
But one thing at a time.
"Ellen Ripley," she says, telling me her name. "I used to…" and takes a deep breath.
"Don't worry, your serpents are dead."
"Serpents?" Ripley repeats, staring at me like I make no sense whatsoever. Which I probably don't.
"Banana-shaped heads, inner and outer jaws, acid blood," I explain. "Some of them have dagger-like stingers on their tails."
And Ripley's nodding to all of this. "I just called them Aliens," her tone telling me she also called them by less flattering names and epithets. Same here, sister.
Even so… "Probably a good idea to use another name – they wouldn't appreciate it."
"Why would I care what those bastards like?" Ripley wants to know, the contempt blaring in her tone, dripping from her voice.
"Not them," I say. Holding my left arm up, miming an examination of the readout, I give her a good look at the black device on that arm. "These guys."
"What is that?" she asks, curious.
I'm not sure what to say. It's my self-destruct, that's for sure. "It stores maps, shows me where I am." Which is also true.
"That's not Company," Ripley says.
"It's not even human," I agree.
"Do they have trunks or implant themselves into ships?"
I frown, baffled. "What?"
"It was one of their ships that I first encountered the Aliens – or, what did you have in mind I call them?"
"Well I just call them serpents…though my – though they call them Hard Meat."
Ripley makes an amused sound.
Yuck it up, girl. Soft Meat is the name they use for humans.
"I think I'll stick with Aliens," Ripley says.
I shrug. They probably won't care, really; but I can't be sure – never could.
"What happened on the ship here?" she asks. "I killed a lot of the Aliens, got up to one of the isolation rooms, locked the door… And then I woke up here."
I nod. "The few serpents you didn't kill yourself, well they were killed when the isolation door shut and some process was initiated." That's why you woke up here and not on some docking bay…if I understood the hand signs right.
"And how did you get here?"
"I was invited," I say. It's a bit more complicated than that, but that's the gist of it. "A week after Mr. Weyland died."
"'Weyland? As in Weyland-Yutani? As in the Company?"
I nod. "The Weyland, yeah." The guy who founded that half of the Company in this point in time.
"That would make you…" and she's both skeptical and amused. "And people said I was old," smiling at that.
"I'm not really old," I say.
"You're a machine?" instantly tensed.
"One hundred percent human. I think relativity's involved in how I'm still here." The Yautja – Predators, Hunters – have two special speeds in their ships. One makes the universe speed past you. The other speeds right past the universe. Between those and their skill at doing what they do, it's no wonder they've survived so long.
I could've stayed on Earth. They made introductions between me and the Harrigans, not to mention with Butch and Anna.
"So who are our hosts?" Ripley asks, trying again.
"Yautja," I answer. "They also answer to Predator, Hunter, and a few things I can't really pronounce."
"And they're enemies of these Hard Meat, the Aliens?"
Nodding would understate the case. "They consider your Aliens one of the more challenging prey of this universe." But not the most challenging, as I found out.
"Then I like these Yautja," Ripley says with enthusiasm.
Speak of the devil: The lone door slides open and heavy footfalls enter the room. Oh going for theatrics, are we? "And this is one of them," I tell Ripley.
"Where?"
And, shimmering across the body like water, this one becomes visible. Scar, I see. I make at him the gesture of Deferrence and Greetings.
In return, he holds out one of the flat-ish consoles, Scar perfectly motionless until I accept it from him. Then he leaves.
"Well that was a first," I remark to myself.
"What?"
"First time they've ever trusted me with something." Weapons don't count.
The screen beeps, red slashes and dashes appearing on a new line in a – wait, since when are box outlines green? for me? - I look back up at Ripley and tell her, "They found someone you might know – sort of a gesture of goodwill," which I don't really know why they're offering this info, but I figure if they wanted her dead, they wouldn't have let me in the room.
"Who?"
Not every slash has a sound human throats can wrap around, but this set definitely is. "Newt," I say. How long was I away, that parents don't see anything wrong with naming their kids after a salamander?
"Consider the gesture received," Ripley says.